The Loner (19 page)

Only then would she think of the future. She might even have time in jail to get through, but she wouldn't worry about that now, either. What she had to do right now was help Black Fox prove her innocent of shooting Donald Turner in the back.

And to kill Tassel Glass in an honorable way. Or not.

Devastation filled her. She felt so desolate about the mess she was in, so sick of being torn between what she wanted to be and what she had to do, that she might even shoot Old Tassel in the back if the opportunity presented itself. She was past caring about her pride or her reputation or anything else. Black Fox was a lawman, like that other proud man who had just ridden in here, and she was an outlaw. It was as simple as that.

Two sets of ambushers waiting for an unknown number of prey—armed horseback outriders riding around the wagons to protect them and the shotgun-toting wagonmasters on the wagonseats driving the teams—would be a very confusing fight. If she got any chance at all to exact the vengeance that had ruled her for so long, she would do it and not even care if it was honorable or not.

Then she might just light out for a far country knowing that Tassel Glass would never kill or hurt any more defenseless women and
that
would be her reward. She could live with that.

The old, calm mountains, reaching into the sky with their shades of purple and blue, beckoned her from the distance like a refuge to be reached someday. Someday. Someday soon, this would all be over and she would be free of the vengefulness that had driven her for so long.

She turned and carried the cooking things back to the fire.

“Cathleen,” Black Fox said, “this is Isom Rainwater, of the Cherokee Lighthorse. Isom, Cathleen O'Sullivan.”

He must have already explained who she was. Rainwater tipped his hat, spoke to her politely, and looked directly into her eyes with a sharply curious look. Then he turned right back to the business at hand.

“This is your deal, Black Fox,” he said deferentially, “so you decide. But my opinion is that we need to set a watch for the whiskey wagon down the road the other side of the Gap, far enough that a man can ride back to give us plenty of warning.”

“Right,” Black Fox said, “if nobody's spotted it before that. I told Willie to keep an eye out on his way back.”

“We'll have to time it just right when we move in,” Rainwater said, “so as not to spook Becker and his bunch.”

He gave a dry chuckle.

“It's not an easy thing to ambush the ambushers.”

The men talked on and Cat listened to them, but she couldn't really hear their plans. Her sweetly aching, sated body was already longing for Black Fox again and her thoughts were set on him. It would only be a few more days, no matter
when
the wagon came up the road from Fort Smith and rolled into the Limestone Gap.

After that, she most likely would never see him again.

 

Black Fox took it as a good sign when he looked up from the map Isom Rainwater was drawing of the Limestone Gap and saw Rabbit Sanders riding around the end of the bluff.

“Two men in less than a day,” he said, glancing at the sun that was only beginning its downward journey. “I'm beginning to think we might get a good bunch together.”

Isom followed his glance.

“Sanders has been over the Deadline hunting Akey Edwards,” Isom said. “I didn't know he was back in the Nation.”

“Black Fox, who is that coming in?” Cat asked.

She was walking up from the lake carrying the clothes she had just washed over her arm. Arolled red bandana was holding her hair off her face, her faded chambray shirt was spotted with water and the knees of her jeans were dirty. He had never seen such a beautiful sight.

“Another Lighthorse,” he answered. “Rabbit Sanders.”

She took the wet clothes to the bushes that grew along the foot of the bluff and began to lay them out to dry. Black Fox tried not to watch her but Sanders had ridden nearly up to them before he
was able to force his gaze away from her and glance at the new arrival.

“Boys,” Sanders said, with a nod of greeting, as he stopped his horse.

“Get down,” Black Fox said. “You hungry?”

“No, thanks,” Sanders said. “After I ran across Willie in town last night, I stayed at the boardinghouse. He said you wanted us as fast as we could ride but I had already come from halfway to Tahlequah that morning. I was rode out.”

“Yeah, sure,” Black Fox said lightly, “we all know you just wanted to put your feet under Mrs. Tallman's table.”

“That, too,” Rabbit said, completely unabashed, as always. “Am I too late to get in on the fun?”

He stood in the stirrup and swung down from his horse.

“We'd never throw an ambush without you,” Black Fox said.

“Well, I aim to make sure none of 'em gets away,” Rabbit said, leading his horse over to the other mounts, who were grazing at the foot of a little curve of the bluff, and starting to unsaddle. “I've about had enough of this chousing all over the country.”

“Did you get Akey?” Isom asked.

“I went after him, didn't I?” Rabbit asked.

He was always cocky, too, which irritated Rainwater mightily but it never bothered Black Fox. Rabbit was the youngest member of the Light-
horse now, a distinction that had once belonged to Black Fox. He could remember how that was.

“Yep,” Rabbit called across the small, grassy meadow. “I got ol' Akey and guess what? He's the one shot the famous Federal Deputy Marshal Donald Turner in the back.”

Sanders might as well have thrown a bolt of lightning. Black Fox's heart began to pound like a dance drum. From the corner of his eye, he saw Cathleen whirl around from her task to stare at Rabbit but he couldn't look at her.

He, too, was trying to see right into Rabbit's head and make sure this was true.

“How do you know?” Black Fox asked. “Did he confess?”

“Bragged about it,” Rabbit said. “And after I went through his saddlebags, I knew the brag was true.”

He pulled his tack off and carried it to where the other saddles stood near the rolled-up beds.

Black Fox turned to look at Cathleen and for one shining moment, happiness blazed between them. Then it went out of her face like a snuffed candle flame.

It happened so fast and was so inexplicable that it chilled him. She never broke the look between them but as her face paled, it closed to him. He couldn't read one hint of what she was thinking.

Quickly, he looked at Rabbit.

“What did you find?”

“Turner's gun, his badge, and all the subpoenas he had to serve.”

“I'd say he did it,” Rainwater said.

Then he looked at Cat and touched the brim of his hat.

“Based on what Black Fox has just told me, that's good news for you, Miss O'Sullivan.”

Her lips looked stiff, as if she wanted to cry. At first, he thought she wasn't going to answer but she did.

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Rainwater.”

For another minute, Black Fox thought she wasn't going to move, either. She started toward the fire, where Rabbit was headed.

Rabbit was looking Cathleen over, clearly wondering who she was and why that was good news for her. He was also looking at her like a bold man looks at a beautiful woman.

Black Fox couldn't even think well enough to introduce them.

“Let me pour you some coffee,” Cat said to Rabbit. “We don't have cream but we do have sugar.”

“I'm Rabbit Sanders, Miss O'Sullivan, ma'am,” the Lighthorse said, “and I take mine black.”

Sanders turned on his powerful smile and Cathleen managed a halting one in return. Black Fox felt a stab of jealousy like none he had ever known.

“That clears her of the killing, Black Fox,” Isom Rainwater said.

He was always a stickler for the letter of the law.

“There are other charges against her,” Black Fox snapped.

Rainwater stared at him. In fact, they were all staring at him—he could feel their eyes on him.

“I was just thinking, considering the danger of the ambush, you might let her go on her word. For now,” Rainwater said, carefully keeping his tone mild and noncommittal.

Let her go? I can't let her go! How could I let her go?

Black Fox glared at him.

“Miss O'Sullivan has a stake in this ambush,” he snapped. “Becker has been leaving her sign at his own crimes.”

“You know that for a fact?” Rainwater asked, still mildly, but Black Fox would swear that his sharp eyes now held a knowing glint.

All three of them waited for his answer.

“I do,” Black Fox said, getting some control back into his voice. “She was in my custody when the sign of The Cat was left on a robbery and a shooting, plus a killing.”

“You're The Cat?” Rabbit asked softly, from behind him. “I have to tell you, ma'am, I admire your bravery.”

“Thank you,” Cathleen said demurely.

Black Fox whirled on them. “Miss O'Sullivan,”
he said, “I'd like to talk to you for a moment.”

He said it so fast he nearly bit his own tongue.

She was handing a full cup of coffee to Rabbit. Their fingers touched as he took it.

Finally, she looked up and acknowledged him.

“Very well, Mr. Vann,” she said, “let's walk along the lake.”

He would prefer to go around the wall of the bluff and get out of sight of the others, but with that look in Rainwater's eyes, he wouldn't suggest that now. No one else needed to know there was anything between him and Cat.

At least, not now. Especially not until he knew what he meant to her.

“So,” she said, when they were out of earshot of the other two Lighthorse, “I have a big stake in the ambush, do I? And that's why you aren't letting me go, even if Rabbit has proved I'm innocent of murder?”

“You watch yourself with Sanders,” he snapped. “He's a rounder.”

And he's not much older than you.

He dragged his thoughts away from Rabbit and his charming smile.

And he would not let himself think about the fact that it was Rabbit Sanders and not Black Fox Vann who had proved The Cat did not kill Donald Turner.

He glanced back over his shoulder at the other
two lawmen who were talking there, beside the fire. This might be his only chance to talk to Cathleen alone.

So, hard as it was, he went straight to the heart of the confusion tormenting him.

“You don't seem very happy about being proved innocent,” he said. “Why not?”

She shifted her gaze away from his.

“As you so quickly said, Black Fox, there are other charges against me.”

Her noncommittal tone of voice gave him no hint of her feelings.

He stopped walking and stood right there, waiting until she stopped, too, and turned to look at him again.

“None of your other charges is a hanging offense,” he said. “Why did the light go out of your eyes as soon as you thought about your life being saved, Cathleen?”

She held his gaze but she didn't speak.

“You looked like you'd been hit with a hammer.”

She didn't answer. She didn't even open her mouth.

He tried to wait her out, he tried to keep his wits about him, but his tongue got away from him.

“I was so happy we could…have more time together,” he said. “Why weren't you?”

She still didn't say a word. She only looked at him with her riotous curls dancing in the wind
and her huge, green eyes filled with tears.

“I was so sad,” she said, but she didn't hesitate and her voice didn't tremble, “because maybe I am still going to hang. I intend to kill Tassel Glass if I have to shoot him in the back.”

N
ow Black Fox felt as if he were the one who'd been hit with a hammer. Her eyes were full of tears, yes, but they were also shining with determination. She meant what she said and she showed none of the anguish that was tearing him apart.

What was it? Did he love her?

Surely it didn't go that deep. It was just that he hadn't been with a woman in a long time. It was just that he'd been lonely.

How could he love an outlaw girl who was an Intruder to boot? One who was ten years younger than him?

Yet he had already acknowledged that she was far more than a girl; she was long past being a girl.
A strong, courageous woman was what she was, and he had always admired courage.

She was a woman he could fall in love with.

The thought stopped his breath.

Surely he hadn't already done so.

Yet whatever it was that he did feel for her was ripping his heart from his body.

She whirled on her heel and started walking away down the edge of the lakeshore. Ungrateful little jade that she was.

Hot fury burst to life in him.

“I'll tie you to a tree if I have to,” he called after her.

She stopped and turned around. She looked at him so straight he actually felt she could see his heart racketing in his chest.

“You can't,” she said flatly, gesturing toward the other lawmen. “They won't let you.”

“This is between you and me,” he shot back.

What did he mean? What was he talking about?

He had been wrong last night—they didn't belong to each other. That had not been his instincts telling him that. It had been only a wild, emotional wish in the heat of passion.

“I've been at it for a year,” she said, and now there wasn't a trace of a tear or a regret anywhere about her—not in her defiant stance or her steady voice or her green eyes blazing at him. “Nothing and nobody's going to stop me from killing Glass now.”

The very look of her filled him with despair. She was not only courageous, she was the most stubborn, determined woman he had ever known.

“If you do, you'll have to go through me,” he said.

“Then so be it,” she said. “I didn't expect you to understand but I wanted you to know. I've never lied to you before and I don't intend to start now.”

He spun on his heel and left her before he could say anything more.

 

Cathleen didn't say anymore to Black Fox for the rest of the time of preparation except about things that didn't matter, like camp-keeping chores and food gathering. She reached deep for the strength to shut him out of her mind and concentrate on the task before her. She watched the federal lawmen and Willie arrive, she talked to them a little, and to Willie to thank him for all he'd done to help her. She told him how grateful she was and that she'd felt guilty about the wound he took when she called Tassel Glass out.

But she made no talk of feelings to Black Fox.

Willie told her about his gunshot wound and his nursing by Kinesah and her mother, plus his trip to Fort Smith and back, but something was different. The best she could tell, Willie wasn't sweet on her anymore and that was a great relief.

Black Fox had looked so miserable out there by the lake when she'd told him she was still bent on
revenge that she knew she had hurt his feelings as a lawman. And as a person. Making one of them miserable was as much as she could bear. After all, both of them had tried to help her.

During the planning for the ambush, though, she had put that guilt away. Black Fox didn't care a thing about her or he would understand why she had to finish what she had started with Glass. Come to think of it, she
had
lied to him, after all, because despite what she'd told him to the contrary, she
had
expected him to understand.

She wrenched her thoughts away from him, refused to let her gaze rest on him—he was sitting on his haunches by the cookfire eating the breakfast prepared by the cook who'd come in with the prison wagon the night before—and took another sip of her coffee, leaning back against the bluff where she was standing in the shadows away from everyone else. During the past two days and nights, she had put
every
feeling away except her cold hatred for Tassel Glass and she didn't intend to let anything, like looking at Black Fox's handsome face, obscure that now.

“Rider coming,” one of the Parker deputies said, and everyone turned to watch one of the night lookouts, who happened to be Rabbit Sanders, coming back into camp at a long, fast trot.

“Barring trouble on the road, the whiskey wagon will hit the Gap along about the middle of the morning,” he called, stopping his horse far
enough away to keep his dust out of the food. “Becker's bunch knows it, too. They're scattering into the brush along both sides of the Gap like a covey of quail.”

Excitement crackled through the camp. Black Fox stood up and took command.

“Saddle up and leave here in pairs,” he said. “Don't ride hard—it's not far, we've got time, and we need Becker's men settled so we'll know where to place ourselves. Wait for me at the lookout tree.”

These men, except for Willie, were professionals. After the first excitation, they moved with quiet sureness to follow Black Fox's plan. Cat went to get her saddle and carried it to her own horse, trying to stay out of Black Fox's view, trying not to attract notice from anyone.

She set the saddle down beside Little Dun, dropped her tin cup into her saddle bag, then slung it over her shoulder while she saddled. That done, and the bridle on, she walked around to the other side of her mare to slide her long gun out of its holster on the saddle skirt.

One more time, she opened the breech and made sure it was loaded. It was old and temperamental, but she knew it well. If Black Fox didn't tie her to a tree, she could do the job she had to do.

She replaced the rifle, pulled her hat down tight and walked around the little mare again, mur
muring to her as she ducked underneath her neck. Dunny snorted her desire to be off.

Cat immersed herself in her usual rituals of getting ready for a raid—she ran her hands down her horse's fleet legs to reassure herself she was sound, she checked the cinch one more time, she fastened the stampede strings on her hat. Then she stuck her toe into the stirrup.

“You and I are a pair,” Black Fox's voice said.

For one crazy instant, she thought she had imagined it. She stepped on up and threw her leg over Dunny.

But then he led his gray horse up beside her and swung into the saddle.

Cathleen took a deep seat and a firm hold on the reins.

“If you're pairing with me so you can tie me to a tree,” she said, tilting her head to look him in the eye, “pick another partner.”

“No,” he said, “I've changed my mind.”

He wasn't going to say anymore right then. She knew him well enough to know that, so she rode out of camp beside him. He didn't say another word all the way to the lookout tree at the head of the gap.

Once there, he dismounted, gestured to her to do the same, and they gave their horses' reins to Willie.

“You've done your part and more with the ride
you made,” Black Fox said to him. “How about if you hold the horses and watch from here to see if anybody runs?”

Willie nodded, but a little reluctantly.

“Some of Becker's men could easily slip away from us,” Black Fox said, “especially the ones on the walls. I need a sharp eye to see if any of 'em try to break when we make our shout.”

“Then I signal our men on top?” Willie asked.

“Right,” Black Fox said. “I'll leave you my spyglass as soon as I go down to the road.”

Then he turned to Cathleen and gestured for her to come with him into the brush. They lay on their stomachs at the top of the cliff on the west side of the gap while he looked over its sides and the road with his glass. Finally, he handed it to her.

“Becker's picked up some more men,” he said. “There're three on the west wall, two on the east, four with Becker down there on the sides of the road and three with the wagon.”

Well, evidently he was going to let her participate, after all. Cathleen scanned the gap.

“I see them,” she said.

Becker's new wagon sat crossways of the road right in the middle of the gap with two men hiding in the bed of it and one out in the road, pretending he was working to fix the harness of his team. He had men on the south end of the gap ready to ride out of the cover of the trees and take the whiskey wagon. Glass or whoever was com
ing to meet it from the north would be separated from their prize by the fortified wagon and its team.

Cathleen studied the position of everyone.

Finally, Black Fox asked, “Ready?”

She nodded and handed the magnifying glass back to him.

“All right,” he said. “Let's go.”

There was no use questioning him. He'd tell her soon enough what he wanted her to do. Then she would figure out if she could do it and take care of Glass, too.

When they returned to Willie, Black Fox gave him the magnifying glass and turned to the rest of the men, who had all gathered by now. He assigned two of them positions on top and sent half of those remaining to the road at the south end of the gap to get around Becker's men.

Then he gestured for everyone else to follow him down the winding trail that led to the road on the north end. He motioned for Cathleen to go ahead of him and she did. Once all of them were down to the trees at the edge of the road, he talked to them quietly.

“We'll fall in behind Glass and his men or whoever is coming to accept the delivery,” he said. “We don't know how many they'll be, so look sharp.”

They took places on both sides of the road. Finally, Black Fox nodded his approval of their
choices and turned to Cathleen. He pierced her with such a significant gaze that her blood pounded in her head.

“Glass is your man,” he said. “When he comes into sight, draw a bead on him and don't look away.”

She clamped her jaw shut—or it would have fallen open in surprise—and stared at him. His eyes were fixed on hers. They were telling her more than he was saying in his stunning words but shock kept her from knowing quite what their message might be.

However, there was no doubt about what his tongue was saying. “If he tries to turn and run when we make our shout, shoot him.”

“All right,” she said, her heart pounding.

Was he giving her permission to take her revenge? Was that what he'd meant about changing his mind?

“Your best place would probably be right up there among those cedars,” he said, and turned to indicate a low rise at the side of the road covered in evergreen trees. “You can sight right in on his heart from there.”

He held the significant look for one more long moment, then he rode away from her to speak in low tones to the other two Cherokee Lighthorsemen who were still on this side of the road, waiting for him. Without so much as a quick glance back at her, he rode away.

Her heart fluttering in her throat like a wild bird in a box trap, Cathleen tried to get her breath as she guided her mare up the little hillock, staying between the cover of the brush and the road. By the time she found a spot on top of it and positioned Little Dunny where she could hide, dismount, unsheath her rifle and rest it across the saddle to have a clear shot at the road, Black Fox had vanished.

Every one of the lawmen had disappeared. She couldn't see a one of them—the wagon driver down in the road was the only person in sight, and she had to look back over her shoulder and down to catch a glimpse of him between the juniper trees.

She turned back and faced north, the direction from which Glass would come, and took in several, long deep breaths to steady herself. What was she doing looking for other people anyhow? Just because she suddenly felt more alone than she ever had in her life, it didn't mean that having somebody else there would help that.

No, this was the job she had set out to do and she had to do it alone. Hadn't she been working at it all alone for months and months?

The sun slanted in between the trees and the walls of the shadowy gap to light the road in strips. Cat set her sights on one of them, took another deep breath, and waited. Anybody riding in from the north would pass right through that beam of light.

She had to make sure it was Glass, though. He might send only his henchmen and stay out of danger for himself, which he sometimes did.

This was it. This was what she had been waiting for. Once it was over, she'd be free of this bitter need to avenge her family and the loss of their home.

It was pretty quiet in the gap—the wildlife had fled or gone into hiding because they sensed something was going to happen. Even the birds were silent. Becker's men with the wagon talked a little bit, back and forth, but not much.

Cat closed her eyes for a minute to accustom them to the dimness of the trees. They needed rest, too, from staring at the very same spot in that same streak of light.

Against her eyelids, she saw Black Fox's face, his eyes as he had given her that look. What all had he meant by that? Permission to shoot Glass? He had set her in a position to do that and never be blamed or questioned, if she waited until the shooting started. There was bound to be shooting on both ends of the gap, when Glass and Becker realized they were surrounded.

But that wasn't like Black Fox, who was such a stickler for the law. She could hardly believe that he wasn't bent on arresting Glass and putting him on trial.

She opened her eyes and stared unseeingly at
the sunlit streak of road. Black hadn't given her permission. He had given her the
choice
.

Stunned by that truth, she thought about it. His whole life was spent upholding the law and he could have her in jail this very minute if he wanted to. Or tied to a tree, as he'd threatened. Instead, he was trusting her to quit being an outlaw and do the lawful thing.